'Lil Blue Elephant: 4th of July fun with straws!

Today, as part of our Summer "Camp" we are of course learning about and celebrating our fabulous country! We used STRAWS for all of our fun activities today, which my kiddos loved! I cannot take credit for all this fun stuff as I read ideas from The Mailbox. Love them! Their books are fabulous, check them out!

Anywho, we used a flag template and talked about the colors, etc while they colored and attached them with tape to a straw for our flagpole. Then we sang, "Grand 'ol Flag" while they waved them around (okay, just I sang while they looked quizzically at me).

Then for the REAL fun! We got some black paper, tempera paint and glitter. Then we bunched together some straws (5-8) and taped around just under the bendy part. Next, you fan out the ends to make a "firework" shape. Now you have a firework stamp!

Then I squirted a generous amount of paint onto 3 small paper plates and let the kids sprinkle glitter so our fireworks would sparkle! Then, they started stamping away on their night sky. They really enjoyed this, especially making explosive sound effects with every stamp! When they were all stamped out, I let them sprinkle more glitter for some extra pizazz!!! Good thing we did this later in the day, because they needed A LOT of drying! Ha ha

Super easy and fun craft, I managed to get through it with a teething baby who skipped his afternoon nap, so trust me! I'll be back tomorrow with another patriotic goody!